Callouts & quotes from 621+ activist slides

""As we look to fiscal '19, we believe there is a unique opportunity to deliver value to our stakeholders beyond M&A by returning capital to shareholders through the announced $50 million share repurchase. We see this as an incremental way to add shareholder value without inhibiting our long-term ability to invest in brand building, delever and pursue future M&A opportunities." — Christine Sacco, CFO, Q4 2018 Call, May 10, 2018"

"A full 87% of [Deutsche Bank conference] attendees believed that if the vote were to occur today, Dell’s existing bid would be voted down — Deutsche Bank Securities research October 21, 2018; In many ways, the IPO alternative seems suboptimal for both sides — Institutional Shareholder Services Inc., research note October 5, 2018; The Biggest Winner of Dell's Public-Market Return? Michael Dell — Bloomberg Deals, July 2, 2018"

"While the Registrant still believes ACV is a leading indicator of revenue opportunity in existing clients and new clients, we believe the disclosure of the metric may imply a certainty in our actual results that does not correspond to the level of estimation inherent in the metric. Thus, we removed the metric as we do not consider it to be meaningful to investors given the risk of misinterpretation. — SEC Response Letter"

"“because everybody is like, how is it possible that some of these hospitals are doing so many TransMedics? Because financially, it’s not possible to do too many...usually you tend to be believe that centers that use the device a lot – maybe they have some incentive to use it that much...Houston, maybe...Henry Ford, maybe....” — Transplant surgeon and division chief of the liver program at a world-renowned academic center"

"“because everybody is like, how is it possible that some of these hospitals are doing so many TransMedics? Because financially, it’s not possible to do too many...usually you tend to be believe that centers that use the device a lot - maybe they have some incentive to use it that much...Houston, maybe...Henry Ford, maybe....” — Transplant surgeon and division chief of the liver program at a world-renowned academic center"

"Yeah. Now to be sure, I have seen companies who I thought were very aggressive just in their tax basis. I couldn't name names, but I've seen some pretty aggressive stuff... I believe at least one of them, it's sort of an open secret in the industry that I've heard from a couple of tax lawyers, at least one of them is going through a whole series of audits right now. — Interview with Former RUN Executive B, November 2021"

"“We’d obviously welcome a substantive turnaround plan from Southwest... In our opinion, bona fide turnarounds often include meaningful changes in network composition, fleet overhauls, and revisions to business models. Management turnover is sometimes a component, as are changes in pricing philosophy... Unfortunately, we don’t believe Southwest is eager to meaningfully engage in such changes...” — J.P. Morgan, April 2024"

"“We’d obviously welcome a substantive turnaround plan from Southwest... In our opinion, bona fide turnarounds often include meaningful changes in network composition, fleet overhauls, and revisions to business models. Management turnover is sometimes a component, as are changes in pricing philosophy... Unfortunately, we don’t believe Southwest is eager to meaningfully engage in such changes...” — J.P. Morgan, April 2024"

"“A very small company. I think they wanted it to work, and they want to believe it works. And, that was not my immediate reaction to what I saw...the person [who ran] clinical development also felt the same way...we were disappointed to not see what we were expecting and reacted accordingly. No matter how you slice and dice it, the data is there the way it is.” — Ex-Soleno employee #2, key role in clinical trial program"

"“We’d obviously welcome a substantive turnaround plan from Southwest... In our opinion, bona fide turnarounds often include meaningful changes in network composition, fleet overhauls, and revisions to business models. Management turnover is sometimes a component, as are changes in pricing philosophy... Unfortunately, we don’t believe Southwest is eager to meaningfully engage in such changes...” — J.P. Morgan, April 2024"

"We’d obviously welcome a substantive turnaround plan from Southwest... In our opinion, bona fide turnarounds often include meaningful changes in network composition, fleet overhauls, and revisions to business models. Management turnover is sometimes a component, as are changes in pricing philosophy... Unfortunately, we don’t believe Southwest is eager to meaningfully engage in such changes... — J.P. Morgan, April 2024"

"Great brands define markets. As a leading branded consumer products company, Heinz must make marketing and innovation its core competency... Trian believes Heinz should reduce the amount that it currently spends on deals and allowances (20% of gross revenue) and reinvest those funds in creative consumer advertising, innovative new products and packaging and cross-marketing initiatives — Trian White Paper: May 23, 2006"

"“We’d obviously welcome a substantive turnaround plan from Southwest… In our opinion, bona fide turnarounds often include meaningful changes in network composition, fleet overhauls, and revisions to business models. Management turnover is sometimes a component, as are changes in pricing philosophy… Unfortunately, we don’t believe Southwest is eager to meaningfully engage in such changes…” — J.P. Morgan, April 2024"

"Attention all TEFL & ESL teachers looking to work abroad teaching in China...SinoEdu is a Chinese chain school that also uses the alias brand of SinoJ or Sino J. Do not believe anything they tell you even if they put it in your contract. They exploit foreigners and do not pay what they promise and force you to work unpaid overtime. If you dare to complain they threaten to get you — Warning posted on April 2, 2018."

"I would tell you that during Q2, Mako sales were quite robust. And we supported our customers through a variety of financing options. And then lastly -- the last bit of color I'll say is that just given the circumstances, we definitely are seeing a shift to financing more deals than we have historically experienced, and I fully believe that, that will continue throughout the rest of this year. — Q2 2020 Conf Call"

"Shareholders need to be satisfied that the peer group is appropriate and not cherry-picked for the purpose of justifying or inflating pay. In general, we believe a peer group should range from 0.5 to 2 times the market capitalization of the Company. In this case, Glass Lewis has identified 10 peers outside of this range, which represents approximately 62.5% of the peer group. — Glass Lewis, Hess Proxy Paper 2011"

"“The bottom line is that there is no compelling valuation opportunity in separating our retail business, and that any potential separation will cause loss of integration synergies, additional cash needed to maintain appropriate balance sheet strength, increase volatility in the remaining business, and, we believe, result in long term value disruption.” — Gary Heminger, Former Chairman & CEO of Marathon Petroleum"

""We believe the new BDC (ACAP) will have inferior returns relative to peers because it has lower asset yields and a higher cost structure. As a result we believe this investment will continue to trade at a deep discount to its book value" — KBW Research Note, November 9, 2015; "We apply an 80% book value multiple to the net assets of American Capital Income" — Cantor Fitzgerald Research Note, November 9, 2015"

"“We note that Alcoa acquired Firth Rixson in November 2014 for a purchase price of $2.85 billion, which compares to our estimated EBITDA exit rate for 2015 of $190 million. Alcoa thus far has not backed away from guidance of $1.6 billion in sales and $350 million in EBITDA for 2016; however, we believe these targets are not attainable and are modelling much lower growth rates.” — Credit Suisse, March 10, 2016"

"“There are no plasma concentration curves to actually compare it meaningfully to preclinical data. I have never seen this before when researching any approved clinical agent... the lack of data in this regard is a huge red flag given that 2D6 is the primary p450 involved in the elimination of pitolisant – it’s hard to believe it was approved without this.” — Pharmacokinetic expert engaged by Scorpion Capital"

"CEO Demarco Q3'16: “At these estimated production levels, we believe the potential market opportunity for Gremlin type aircraft is in the high several hundreds of millions of dollars up into billions of dollars” — Eric DeMarco. CEO Eric DeMarco: “It is very competitive, I am sorry, I did not talk about it in the script and I am not talking about it anymore. It's focus time. So, I apologize.” — Eric DeMarco."

"“I do belong to the camp where I think there is clear space for a product that is oral and has the tolerability that we believe our TYK2 agent has and has a efficacy that is comparable to biologics to carve a really important space in the market. And we do look at that opportunity as a really meaningful opportunity for us.” — Giovanni Caforio, Chairman & CEO, Guggenheim Partner Oncology Day, February 2019"

""We believe a separation of our retail business from the remainder of Valero by way of a tax-efficient distribution will create operational flexibility within the businesses and unlock value for our shareholders... As independent companies, both retail and the remaining business will be better-positioned to focus on their industry-specific strategies." — Bill Klesse, Valero Chairman and CEO, July 31, 2012"

""They did 140% (total volume) recently. Having said that, even though I really believe in Philip, Nuvei and SafeCharge, I think it (volume growth) will now go a little bit down. They had the pitch and utilized the services, products in the background, Nuvei on the high risk in the states. Now they find a place where they have to start competing in the less risk markets." — Former Nuvei Employee Interview"

""in terms of the numbers, it's less material. So, that's why we didn't refer to it. It's relatively a small company at this stage, but we believe that together with the breadth of the customers' opportunity that we have that we acquired through Vubiquity now, the opportunity is significant moving forward to create those synergies. But it will take some time naturally." — Tamar Rapaport-Dagim, CFO, Amdocs"

""Boustead Securities, rightly so, insisted on lockups for all the existing shareholders and the option holders and warrant holders, et cetera. There were a few people released from their lockups. But we still have, I believe it's in excess of 95, 96 percent of the entire pre-IPO group of shareholders that are locked up for a minimum of six months and more likely for closer to a year." — Mr. Menerey, CFO"

""If in fact prescriptions exceeded the supply cap and lacked state authority, I believe the DEA administrator will revoke Truepill’s DEA registration," — Ronald Chapman II. "I think that the industry is a really good target for some pretty strict regulation. Thanks to Cerebral, when the DEA investigation finally concludes, I suspect that'll happen." — Spruce Point Interview With Former HIMS Executive."

"NEW: "We believe we are a leading cloud-native, SaaS provider within the alternative investment sector, and expect that as that sector grows, we will continue to extend our position." — Enfusion 2023 10-K. OLD: "We believe we are the leading cloud-native, SaaS provider to the global hedge fund sector and expect that as the alternative investment sector grows, we will continue to extend our position.""

"For AOL Time Warner, in the long run had they gotten AT&T Broadband, it would have been strategic brilliance. — Saul Hansell and Steve Lohr, The New York Times, December 21, 2001; For TWX, we believe this was a tough asset from which to part, given their already strong foothold in cable networks and Comedy Central's attractive demographic reach. — Jessica Reif Cohen, Merrill Lynch, April 22, 2003."

"Mr. Müller, you have just made some remarks about Muddy Waters. I believe that, for me at least, that will be a principal theme today. But allow me to say something by way of introduction. The victims of such attacks are those who leave themselves open to attack. I believe that, having conducted this business in the way that you have, resembles network marketing, of about 50%. — Mr. ten Doornkaat"

""What you have seen us do, quite frankly, is a bit opportunistic around that DVMT stock" — Dell CFO, 12/8/16; "We believe that the tracking stock will provide an opportunity for previous EMC shareholders to continue to benefit from the performance of VMware" — Dell CFO, 9/7/16; "we use those proceeds [from VMW sales] to then buy DVMT [which] has been very good." — Dell Investor Relations, 6/20/17"

"Red Lobster's business continued to decline through fiscal year end, and based on industry trends, the declines were expected to continue for an extended time — Darden Press Release. The management team believes that each of these issues are temporary in nature, correctable, and that they have plans in place to return the business to historic levels of profitability — Red Lobster Debt Memorandum."

"Red Lobster's business continued to decline through fiscal year end, and based on industry trends, the declines were expected to continue for an extended time — Darden Press Release. The management team believes that each of these issues are temporary in nature, correctable, and that they have plans in place to return the business to historic levels of profitability — Red Lobster Debt Memorandum."

""Recall that our Pika and Neurio acquisitions enabled us to bring an efficient and intelligent energy saving solution to the market in December called PWRcell, which we believe will position Generac as a key participant going forward. Q1 represented the first full quarter of commercial shipments of PWRcell units at scale, which met our relatively high expectations." — CFO York, Q1 2020 Conf Call"

""And we believe that the listing in New York in particular in the multi-capitalisation which will approach $20 billion once the synergies are factored in, will put us sort of mid-way in the S&P500 index and create index buying that actually will create flow forward, right. You typically talk about flow back in cross border deals. We would expect flow forward." — CEO Dalia, Deal Call Aug 7, 2018"

"The Company will not comment on the veracity of the information relating to Panjiva. However, the Company believes that it is inappropriate to compare Panjiva’s data in respect of imports into the United States to the Group’s sales worldwide (other than the PRC) which approximate the figures under the column headed ‘HK filings’ in the above table. — Man Wah Holdings Clarification Announcement"

""I think Verint is stalling. That is part of the reason I left to be perfectly honest. Verint got stuck in its old ways." — Former Verint Employee; "It feels like Verint is slowing down." — Former Verint Employee; "Verint's culture is toxic." — Verint Competitor; "Verint has been complacent and I believe it has been a cultural challenge for them [in embracing the cloud]." — Verint Competitor"

"“Rather than say that it's the volume, it's always better to move forward with a better product mix in terms of the profitability.” — Nagamori (Q1 2012 call). “I believe that the capacity question was in regard to spindle motors and in terms of excess capacity there, whereas there are three factories in Thailand currently, the idea is to reduce by one factory.” — Nagamori (Q2 2012 call)."

"The Board believes that the business can conservatively support a debt to EBITDA ratio of 1x, while also providing significant flexibility to support Deckers' growth initiatives and seasonal working capital needs. — 10/26/17 press release; No, it's not an ongoing target... That doesn't necessarily mean we'll always maintain that 1x EBITDA. — Thomas George (CFO), 10/26/17 earnings call"

""To this day, I don't believe in sequels. I can't follow popular cycles. I have to move on to new things—there are many new worlds to conquer." — Walt Disney, 1966 Letter to Shareholders; "I'd say we're leaning a little bit more into sequels and franchises... doing that, leaning on franchises that are familiar is actually a smart thing." — Robert A. Iger, CEO & Director, February 2024"

"CFO Reagan: “You're thinking about the Health margins, we are now -- and we continue to believe that the Health margins, which were very strong in the quarter, continue to be sustainable.”; CEO Krone: “We were able to sell part of the business that really wasn't in our portfolio. Clearly, that would have been lower-margin for us.” — JPMorgan, Leidos Earnings First Look, Oct 29, 2019"

"I agree with you 100%, and I agree with you on your take on Neil Cowen’s PK paper. I do believe it was slightly manipulated...Off-label, certainly people could use it...you’re completely right. If this is really such a good drug, people can use diazoxide and suspension exactly the same way for pennies on the dollar. — Ex-senior Soleno employee #1, key role in clinical trial program"

"I believe that, as far as the numbers are concerned, discussion is possible. But you have an auditor, and you have others who are overseeing the audit. I also know that there are some in-house analysts who are also looking at the issue. A clear opinion has emerged, which we at the DSW share, that the numbers have not been manipulated, massaged or falsified. — Marc Tüngler (DSW)"

""our Company still believes in decentralized operations, because all of our businesses are very different and compete in different industries." — Don Logan; "we run [TWC] as a stand-alone business...we operate at arm's length [to the Parent] and have for years." — Glenn Britt; "the ‘one company’ strategy never got off the ground...each division did its own thing." — Steve Case"

"“During the first quarter [2010], local currency sales were up 69% in Korea... We believe that the momentum in Korea shows no signs of slowing.” — Des Walsh (May 2010); “While most of our markets performed well in 2016, we continue to work through the challenges in Brazil, Korea and China... In Korea, we face the [sic] number of challenges...” — Michael Johnson (February 2017)"

"We believe shareholders benefit when equity of long-term incentive awards vest on the basis of metrics with pre-established goals and are thus demonstrably linked to the performance of the company...In this case, shareholders should be concerned with the Company’s failure to implement a performance-based long-term incentive plan with objective metrics and goals. — Glass Lewis"

""We believe Adjusted EBITDA is useful to management, investors and analysts in providing a measure of core financial performance adjusted to allow for comparisons of results of operations across reporting periods on a consistent basis. These adjustments are intended to exclude items that are not indicative of the ongoing operating performance of the business." — NOVA 2019 10K"

"at the time the 2012 profit plan was established, the compensation committee believed that it was challenging;" or the Board's belief that its "executive compensation programs are founded on the belief that there should be a substantial and meaningful connection between the compensation of our named executive officers and the amount and quality of our earnings" — HMA's Proxy"

"Experts question the claim by Quantumscape, backed by $500 million from Bill Gates, Silicon Valley venture capitalists, and VW — Marker. But most battery researchers don't believe it — The Mobilitist. But some observers aren't convinced that QuantumScape's lithium-metal batteries will power cars and trucks on the road as soon as the company claims. — MIT Technology Review."

"Well, if you look at where we're trading today based on 2025 consensus earnings, we're trading at something like an 8.8, 8.9 multiple, that's more than one turn above our refining competitors. So, we believe there is some recognition of [the value of the midstream business] in the shares today. — Phillips 66 CEO Mark Lashier, Piper Sandler Energy Conference, March 18, 2025"

"Well, if you look at where we're trading today based on 2025 consensus earnings, we're trading at something like an 8.8, 8.9 multiple, that's more than one turn above our refining competitors. So, we believe there is some recognition of [the value of the midstream business] in the shares today. — Phillips 66 CEO Mark Lashier, Piper Sandler Energy Conference, March 18, 2025"

"With respect to Viterra, I'm not going to comment on whether it's included in those 13 or 14 assets. But what I can say is that we don't believe Viterra is accurately reflected in the value of the Glencore share price. So we are looking at ideas around Viterra to be able to provide that see-through value in our share price for our shareholders. — Glencore CEO, Feb 15, 2022"

"Well, if you look at where we're trading today based on 2025 consensus earnings, we're trading at something like an 8.8, 8.9 multiple, that's more than one turn above our refining competitors. So, we believe there is some recognition of [the value of the midstream business] in the shares today. — Phillips 66 CEO Mark Lashier, Piper Sandler Energy Conference, March 18, 2025"

"Talk about a fall from grace. Of all the US airlines, Southwest has evolved the least since 9/11, relative to an industry that has undergone a massive profit transformation ... We believe substantive changes to its business model are required if margins are ever going to reclaim the high ground, but management (thus far) appears uninterested. — J.P. Morgan, December 2023"

"Talk about a fall from grace. Of all the US airlines, Southwest has evolved the least since 9/11, relative to an industry that has undergone a massive profit transformation ... We believe substantive changes to its business model are required if margins are ever going to reclaim the high ground, but management (thus far) appears uninterested. — J.P. Morgan, December 2023"

"Talk about a fall from grace. Of all the US airlines, Southwest has evolved the least since 9/11, relative to an industry that has undergone a massive profit transformation ... We believe substantive changes to its business model are required if margins are ever going to reclaim the high ground, but management (thus far) appears uninterested. — J.P. Morgan, December 2023"

"Talk about a fall from grace. Of all the US airlines, Southwest has evolved the least since 9/11, relative to an industry that has undergone a massive profit transformation ... We believe substantive changes to its business model are required if margins are ever going to reclaim the high ground, but management (thus far) appears uninterested. — J.P. Morgan, December 2023"

"A former insider with intimate knowledge of the internal processes claimed that during her/his time at the company the founder touted that the content integrity team is “50 people strong”, while, due to Chinese Wall reasons, staff employees never saw a detailed list of these individuals. However, the insider believed that the team had “6 people at most.” — Former Insider"

"“We’re supportive of the new draft MBO guidelines which increase minority shareholder protection. We believe these guidelines and other such measures focused on improving corporate governance will improve Japan’s capital markets as an investment destination,” Seth Fischer, Chief Investment Officer of Oasis Management in Hong Kong, told this news service. — Seth Fischer"

""It is massively important that EnVe's can be easily connected to eGates, something we have been passionate about for a long time. eGates drive automation, security and member experience. We are piloting eGates in select airports today and absolutely believe this technology should be a cornerstone of modernized airport infrastructure." — CLEAR CEO (Q4'24 earnings call)"